Roulette
/ruːˈlɛt/noun
A gambling game in which a ball is spun around a rotating wheel with numbered slots.
Did you know?The word comes from French roulette, a diminutive of roue (“wheel”), and the same wheel-root also lives in everyday words like route and rotate, all tracing back to the ancient idea of turning in a circle.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*ret-
“to run, roll, or turn”
Latin
Latin
rota
“wheel”
Old French
Old French
roele / roulette
“little wheel”
18th Century
French
roulette
“small wheel; later the gambling wheel”
18th Century
English
roulette
“the spinning wheel game of chance”